Stinky Breath. Holy Breath.
A few weeks ago, I had a really sweet moment with my youngest daughter, Rosemary. It was early in the morning, still dark outside, and she and I were the only two awake in the house. We were snuggling on the sofa in the quiet, and I was soaking in every bit of this precious moment when she whispered, “Mommy, I have to tell you something.” I snuggled her a little closer thinking she was going to say one of her trademark lines - “I love you.” I asked her, “What is it, baby?” As she nuzzled herself into my chest, she said, “Mommy…your breath is stinky.”
She wasn’t wrong.
This week in church we continued our celebration of Season of Creation, a four week period where we focus on creation care and the intersections between faith and ecology. This week, we focused on “air” or “wind.” This is one of my favorite theological concepts because the Hebrew word of air or wind, “ruach,” and the Ancient Greek word of air or wind, “pneuma,” are both very fascinating and complex words. In addition to meaning “air” or “wind,” they are the same word used for “spirit,” or even “soul.” Last week in church, we talked about the second creation story in Genesis, where God forms the first human from the dust of the ground and breathes the breath of life into its nostrils, making it a living being. In addition to the literal breath that makes us able to live, we can understand this as God breathing the spirit of life into this ‘adam, realizing that that both air AND spirit are what make each of us alive.
Just think about that for a minute, that your breath, that which makes you and keeps you alive, is akin to your spirit. And yet just like our spiritual selves, how often we take our breath for granted, considering we it is something we are doing over and over on autopilot without even giving the activity of breathing any attention. Do me a favor. Close your eyes. Take a breath in through your nose – long and slow as you count to four. Then exhale out through your mouth on the same, slow count. Just do that for a few moments. Focusing all of your active attention on what’s happening in your body and with your mind as you breathe in and breathe out.
It's remarkable how much taking a moment to focus on the God-given and live-sustaining act of breathing can center us and awaken our spiritual selves.
But breathing is getting harder and far more complicated. In addition to us not paying very much attention to act of taking a breath, the air that we breath is shifting. It is moving from life-sustaining to life-threatening. The World Health Organization (WHO) tells us that their most recent data shows that 99% of the global population is breathing air that exceeds their guideline limits for particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide. Ninety-nine percent of the global population is breathing unhealthy air – air that is linked to increased risks for strokes, heart and lung disease, cancer and other ailments. The WHO states that polluted air we breathe is linked to over 6.7 million premature deaths every single year. 89% of those premature deaths from breathing toxic air are in low and middle-income countries – predominantly in southeast Asia and the western pacific.
There is no disputing the scientific fact that the air we breath, that “ruach” or “pneuma” that is akin to our spirit, is killing us.
Like so many of the environmental crises threatening our existence, we know where the air pollution is coming from and we know how to employ cleaner practices that would improve the quality of the air we breathe. While there are a few natural sources of air pollution like volcanoes erupting or dust storms, the overwhelming majority of the pollution in our air is introduced through human practices - power generation, transportation, industry, residential heating and cooling, agriculture, burning our waste. Some of these causes are double whammies, both contributing to air pollution and emitting greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. And speaking of global warming, the hotter this planet is getting, the poorer the air quality, as heat only exacerbates how airborne pollutants impact our health.
So what do we do? While each of us can certainly make greener choices to reduce the amount of pollutants we contribute to the atmosphere, the largest amounts of pollution are produced from entrenched systems, from systems fixed in place by the heavy weights of capitalism and the shackles of greed, selfishness and apathy. Even though we have the knowledge and the technology to clean up the air we breathe, the air that keeps us alive, it will take a lot for us to change course – mostly because it will take a lot of “us” to change course. The whole world, entire nations, would need to band together and commit to stopping harmful practices, even though the changes will take time and cost money, and will slow down the profits for the many.
The changes needed are at once so simple, and so hard to make, and so we have continued on, refusing to face this issue with the intensity required for decisive change. From the time that the term “climate change” became a household term, from the time that Al Gore introduced us to An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, we have not done enough to change course, and have allowed the air we breathe to become more and more toxic as the earth gets warmer and warmer. Our collective apathy over addressing something as vital as the air going into our lungs repeatedly all day and all night, requires a God-like intervention. A divine spark. A God-event that wakes us from our sleepy inaction and moves our bodies to action with the urgency that our minds know is reality.
In the text from the Gospel of John today, Jesus is with his disciples and as he is with them, he breathes on them, pouring out the Holy Spirit upon them. This breath, this wind imparts the Spirit of God, transforming the disciples in powerful ways and equipping them with the bravery, wisdom and tenacity to go forth, sharing the gospel and welcoming new disciples. This is the kind of spirit-imparting event that we need today. We need Christ to breathe upon us once again (with breath that I am sure is not stinky), reviving that Holy Spirit within us, so that we are once again energized and brave enough to go out and tackle our environmental crises head on – individually and together.
So let’s seek this spiritual revival now. When we go out into this world, into nature, let’s stand and let the wind hit our faces. And for just one minute, instead of worrying about the air quality of that particular day, let’s feel the wind as the breath of God. Let’s invite God to breathe upon us again, reminding us of that Holy Spirit that is already within us. In the ancient texts that make up our Bible, the languages in which they were originally written say that “air” and “wind” and “breathe” and “spirit” are of the same essence. We have to operate from that understanding if we hope to survive – that the air we breathe, and the wind in our face is one and the same with the breath and the Spirit of God. It is this understanding that gives us the framing in which we know that changes must be made now, because the breath of God imparts life, not death!
So once again, close your eyes. Breathe in slowly. Exhale slowly. With each inhale remember that original gift of life and spirit that God breathed into the nostrils of the first human creation. The legacy of that spirit passes down to all of us. With each exhale, remember how Christ breathed upon his disciples, sharing the Holy Spirit with each of them – that spirit that still lives within us as followers. Breathe in. Breathe out. And with all of your breath and all of your spirit, you will know that you, that we, are powerful enough to do this hard work of protecting all that God has created. We will not allow our breath, the God given gift that keeps us all alive, to be the source of our death. Amen.
